Dr. Noam Werner
Innovative, motivated, and passionate about wildlife conservation, Noam holds a B.A. in social sciences from the Hebrew University, an M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences and a Ph.D. in Zoology, both from Tel Aviv University. Noam has been working in Israeli zoos for over 20 years, first at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo and more recently as the Director of the Haifa Educational Zoo. On top of his work at the Haifa Educational Zoo, Noam serves as the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) Deer TAG chair as well as Co-Chair for the IUCN SSC Deer Specialist Group. As part of his zoo work, Noam has been involved in the design of many exhibits including, for example, having a leading role in the conceptual, zoological, educational, and experiential design of the Israel Aquarium. Noam also has been presenting talks in zookeeper training courses, and as a zoologist has been initiating and running multiple independent and collaborative studies in fields such as animal behaviour, morphology, taxonomy, nutrition, ecology, and genetics, and has also been teaching various zoology-related courses in several academic institutions. Today Noam consults for the Company's overseas projects.
For 10 years Noam presented the "Animal Behavior" course at the Open University. As part of his duties at the Jerusalem Zoo, he presents advanced zookeeper courses and also mentors young researchers. During his studies, Noam worked independently, as the only “fish person” in a mostly bird-focused research team, work that also included a 3-month long fieldwork in Africa as a member of a multi-national team. This experience later allowed him to initiate a wide range of independent and collaborative research at the zoo, including behavioral studies on subjects such as zebra aggression, co-housing of adult rhino bulls, or flying-fox welfare following night tours; population management studies such as factors that influence fallow-deer breeding biology, taxonomy and genetics of threatened species, such as the Egyptian tortoise and the Dead-Sea tooth-carp; morphology; nutrition; conservation ecology and more.